1858 Penny

[Gary]

I have been asked about this 1858 Penny by a friend and I am going to throw it open.

To me it looks like a small date over a large date but it is very close call, so opinions please.

Thanks,

Gary

cannot attach a picture! "Global Space Left: 0bytes". help! what has happened? Are we no longer allowed to post pictures?

Ok, I have put a scan on the net , here.

1858 Penny

[Chris Perkins]

Pictures should work again now!

That just looks like a double struck (double punched) 1858, you can see that even the border beads are doubled at the bottom.

[Gary]

At first glance that is exactly what I thought, double date, but if you look at the 1 and the last 8, the underlying numerals are definitely larger, in height. Agreed, the border beads look to be double struck but the owner of this coins say`s there is no sign of a double strike on the rest of the legend or bust. Unfortunatly I do not have the coin in front of me and the scan of the whole coin I have been sent is a little out of focus. I would tip on a recut date. The large and small date pennies have a different date width and in this case the underlying date seems to be of the same width as the over date. A worn Die, date recut?

um, Chris. I can now add a picture, thanks; but I think I should worn you that I am told I have "unlimited space" and no longer just 65kb or whatever it was limited to before. You might want to check that!!! before your web server is filled by some idiot.

[Rob]

At first glance that is exactly what I thought, double date, but if you look at the 1 and the last 8, the underlying numerals are definitely larger, in height.

If you look at the height of the 1, the difference in height between the two 1s is only about 3%. The picture below has both large and small date and here the difference in size is close to 10%. Also the last 8 on your coin looks as if it could be triple as opposed to double cut. The bottom digit is lower which could explain the apparently larger size, but the top left of the bottom loop looks to me to have two separate cuts, the upper being displaced slightly to the right unless this is an optical illusion. If you measure the height of the characters, they are all the same nominally.

[Gary]

Ok, cheers Rob. So just a recut Die then.

[Gary]

Ok Chris here is your mega test image